


remember

by greylina



Series: Dwell In Possibility [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen, Prologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 19:29:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13770963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greylina/pseuds/greylina
Summary: There are things better left unspoken by way of words, things only understood and acknowledged by the looks shared between two people who have seen and been through so much together.





	remember

It’s a topic that’s definitely there, one that neither Carolina nor Washington have openly talked about. But you see the way they look at each other; affirmative nods are perhaps attempts at acknowledging more than agreed-on plans and quiet ‘ _ take cares. _ ’ Their silence about it is fitting, if not stubborn; It is to them the erasure of their own past as it is the other’s. It’s a mutual agreement to lock it up somewhere else, to let it be regarded as nothing, to pretend as though it was as easy to forget as all lives they’d taken long ago, or the names they used to know, used to bear. The unfortunate reality of it, however, is that it is anything  _ but. _ Every look they share is nothing if not apologetic; reaching looks struggling to communicate through the barriers of their visors. Something not even HUDs could communicate for them; not really. Maybe the reason why they’ve never openly spoken about it wasn’t purely that they didn’t want to; Maybe they didn’t see it as a problem, or had, after years of its continued silence, reasoned with themselves that it wasn’t a problem. After all, both were leaders -- leaders born of different circumstances, sure, but leaders nonetheless. And as leaders, they prioritized others before themselves, and as long as the other wasn’t making it an issue for the rag-tag group of misfits, then really, was there an issue at all? 

There had been a time when it did pose a threat -- Carolina had been too harsh, too stubborn. Demanded too much, and settled for nothing. She had, at that time, believed too harshly in lives that could be avenged; After all, she’d reasoned with herself that that was all it took to repent for every sin she had committed under the eyes of the ever merciful God. And she hurt people, and she drove them away. One time she had even come so close as to threaten lives of those she should have seen as ‘allies.’ It was desperate, and she was more than desperate, and all that exasperated desperation yelled nothing but the two words Washington had long begged to never hear again:  _ Project Freelancer _ . But that was a long time ago, and any other instance since had been overlooked as they were ‘too small to worry about.’ After all, people do say that ignorance is bliss. But was it really? 

Sure, they had their fair share of careless laughter, rounds of beer shared while the Reds and the Blues argued about one thing or another. They’ve been blissful, and they knew so well how hard it was to let go of such an indulgence after having it taken from their fingertips, ripped apart before their eyes. The faces they once laughed with a long time ago have long since gone, and each loss had felt like a knife kicked deeper into their chest. They absolutely knew what it felt like to lose someone, especially to lose themselves. The question to ask, then, was: Were they so willing to admit it? 

Looking at each other, they saw everything wrong with themselves reflected back in bright hues. If it wasn’t the years spent fighting the wrong fight, or all the time wasted burning the image of a leaderboard into their minds, then it was the raise of the curtains, their audience a faceless sea of the innocent they’ve wronged; the fruit of their labor revealed to them to be rotten, disgusting. Looking at each other was facing a monster they long to be rid of. They didn’t want to be reminded of the crimes they’d done,  to see the faces they wish they could see once more. They didn’t want to feel guilty for anything. They did their time; They’d had their share of torture. The last thing they needed was to let it break through the ground they’d buried it in. Both of them had found something new; Carolina had found solace, and Wash found a new life. They were good. They were better. And that was good enough. Good enough, because they couldn’t let it be anything less.

But still it insisted on coming back -- this incessant topic that sat in heavy air, heavy silence every time they spent one second too long with each other. It was, for them, a struggle of expecting apologies and explanations, and understanding that the other didn’t want to talk. It was a clash of minds that thought too much alike, struggling against currents to prove that, no, they were different.  _ I’m better now _ , he said, she said. It’d been a long,  _ long _ while since the Project ended, the distinctive gunshot that took the Director’s life ringing faintly in Carolina’s memory, and surely that was enough time to drop the topic, to let it go and rest with what was Project Freelancer. It’d been an even longer time since Washington had been believed dead, his new life started for him by those he had betrayed. They’d let it go, but it  _ insisted. _

Letting go, after all, didn’t mean  _ forgetting. _


End file.
